On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Richard Stallman wrote:

quoted text
>     It also seems silly to me this idea between "tainted" and "clean"
>     oses, such as Open and gNewSense, respectively.  Take for example
>     a user that runs Ubuntu [GNU/]Linux but proscribes to your free-only
>     philosophy.  They don't have to install the adobe flash plugin
>     (which I believe is still a binary of sorts.) They can choose not
>     to.
> 
> The Adobe flash plug-in is non-free software, and people should not
> install it, or suggest installing it, or even tell people it exists.
> That Firefox offers to install it is a very bad thing.
> 
> I've been trying for a couple of years to get going a modified version
> of Firefox that won't offer to install any non-free plug-ins, but we
> don't have enough people to make this work very well.  If you would
> like to help, please let me know.  It is an important project.

This incredibly misguided. People won't switch to free software
because of hectoring and hamfisted attempts to frustrate their
choices, but they instantly switch when free software becomes a
compelling replacement - look at Apache or OpenSSH.

Rather than wasting effort trying to make firefox unusable for an
unfortunately large proportion of its userbase and on insulting
OpenBSD developers with spurious accusations, why not spend the
energy on making a usable flashplayer replacement? or on getting
Adobe to open their source/specifications?

-d